


Head To Head

by StellarLibraryLady



Series: Weird But Beautiful [8]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bickering, Carrying, Crew as Family, Determined Spock, Food, Friendship, Illnesses, Impromptu Party, James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock & Montgomery "Scotty" Scott Friendship, Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock Friendship, M/M, Mild Language, Rest and relaxation, Showers, Sleepy McCoy, Spock Carrying McCoy, Vulcan Nerve Pinch, battle of wills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarLibraryLady/pseuds/StellarLibraryLady
Summary: Exhausted and in the middle of a health crisis on the Enterprise, McCoy stubbornly keeps working until someone just as stubborn and determined as he is shows up to persuade him to get some food, rest, and a shower.Especially a shower.  Because, really, McCoy, you're more than ripe!
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Series: Weird But Beautiful [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761436
Comments: 6
Kudos: 83





	Head To Head

With a sigh of extreme fatigue that he hadn't allowed others to hear him utter in public, Leonard McCoy pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and screwed his blood-shot eyes tightly shut to rest them for a minute. He was safe back here in the privacy of his office for a moment, safe from the work, the worry, and the terrible smells.

Was it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or even the same week it had been since he had last entered Sickbay? Hell, he didn’t know. That had been in some other lifetime, back with regular meals, regular shifts, and the opportunity to see something else besides the next sick person in a line that seemed to stretch on forever.

No, he had long ago forgotten what a normal life was like anymore. And if anybody was smart, they wouldn’t even start to ask him when he was going to throw in the towel and go get some hot food and then some decent rest. Quitters did that, and he hadn’t even begun to fight this strange new disease that was having such a merry time while plaguing the crew of the Enterprise.

He supposed it had come from that last shore leave they’d taken. Of course, the owners of that resort would not want any bad publicity to come back on them, because then they might lose potential business from other starship crews wanting a safe, clean place to blow off some steam in the future. But the owners should man up and admit to what had happened, or else other starships could face what the Enterprise was dealing with now. And so would other Chief Medical Officers on those starships.

And Leonard McCoy wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone else, not even that prick who ran the sickbay on the Forthright. Collins was a blowhard and a coward, but somehow he had managed to sleep his way up the medical pecking order to be a CMO. Apparently, he must be able to do it just like his captain liked it, because the two of them were inseparable. According to rumor, Collins had a reputation for owning the best contracting throat in the Fleet and supposedly had a fan club among the Top Brass at Federation Headquarters when they got to yearning for an adventurous blow job on the sly.

But McCoy was no fan of Collins-- for anything that the little weasel did-- amazing contracting throat or not. In fact, McCoy wouldn’t mind hearing that the guy had broken both of his wrists and couldn’t even wipe his own butt, or that he had come down with the same galloping shits that was now plaguing the Enterprise. But, of course, the Collinses of the universe would sail through this crisis with nary even an extra stinking fart, while the McCoys would be sunk up to their elbows in excrement. And because of it, would smell like an outhouse in high summer. Sometimes, the universe just vibrated that way, and there was nothing that the McCoys could do but just fight it the best way they knew how.

So that was what Leonard McCoy was doing now, fighting the best way he knew how until he went down in a sodden heap never to move again. In the meantime, everyone else had just better stand back and leave him to it. Because he sure as hell was gonna give it all he had!

McCoy just needed to take a quick break for himself…. Just let him sit here in his office a moment and catch his breath... Then he would get right back out on the front lines.... Just for a moment.... Just to rest... for a... and.... a....

His eyes fluttered... and went... down... down... down....

At that moment the door to his office flew open, and McCoy jerked awake from the half-doze he'd been going under. A grim-looking Spock walked in glaring at him. It was probably evident to both of them that McCoy's eyes looked glazed and lost. Spock's own eyes went down a notch in irritation when he saw McCoy's condition, and he looked pissed off royally. Whatever was on the Vulcan's mind, he was not happy with what he was finding.

“I don’t remember saying ‘Enter,’" McCoy mumbled, trying to get a grip on himself.

"I did not knock," Spock shot back.

"Oh. Well. That probably accounts for it then." McCoy's mouth felt lax, and he had a difficult time forming words. He was dying to scrub his tired face with his hand, but Spock would take that for a sign of fatigue for sure.

Spock could be a ball-buster, and he looked like he was in the mood to put some guy's man-seeds in a bind. McCoy was just as determined that they would not be his. "No one’s allowed in here without my say-so, Commander Spock. I don't care if you do think that you sit at the right hand of the Almighty. In this Sickbay, you don't. That chair fits my ass and nobody else's."

Spock's one eyebrow went up a notch, but he did not challenge McCoy. And that was a wonder, because McCoy was probably guilty of insubordination the moment he'd opened his mouth. And he hadn't improved the situation much since then.

"Chapel must be slipping," McCoy complained. "Generally, she eats pests like you for a mid-morning snack and burps out their bones into a refuse pile. Maybe her teeth couldn't chew up that rough exterior of yours, though. But I'm sure she'll try again once she gets her teeth sharpened down to fine points,” he muttered, knowing full well that such a greeting and veiled threat would probably get him nowhere with the green-blooded hobgoblin.

And it didn’t. 

"It is not Nurse Chapel's fault that I gained unauthorized access into your private chambers, Doctor. It happened because I overruled her authority," Spock snapped back.

McCoy sighed in vexation. "Well, you're in here now. What do you want?" he snarled.

Spock drew himself up majestically and treated McCoy to his best haughty, disapproving look. “As your immediate superior officer, I am superseding all of your previous orders to your staff, whether verbal or simply implied. As of this moment, you are no longer fit for duty and are being placed in rest and recuperation for the safety of your patients as well as for your own health's sake.”

“That’s a load of hogwash!” McCoy declared at he jumped to his feet. “Now get out of my sickbay before you really piss me off! I’m busy!” He swayed slightly on his feet from dizziness and fatigue. He hated that he had shown that much weakness to the Vulcan, for he could see the justified gleam in Spock's eyes.

"Besides, you have no justification for your claims," McCoy blustered.

“Oh, but I do," Spock said with a great amount of satisfaction that he had his evidence handy. "You have missed seven consecutive meals, three of which were substituted with protein bars which were eaten, as Nurse Chapel said to me, ‘on a dead run.’ The other four meals were simply ignored, despite repeated pleas from Miss Chapel and the nursing staff to the contrary.”

“Chapel needs to take up knitting,” McCoy muttered. “Then she’d had enough to do so she wouldn’t be minding someone else’s business! Who keeps track of what somebody else eats anyway?!”

"Nurse Chapel is a caring person who is concerned about your welfare."

"Don't need no busybody green guy to tell me what an excellent nursing staff I have," McCoy slurred, then made an effort to tighten his lips so he wouldn't sound so drunk. Or exhausted. "The best in the Fleet! And Christine Chapel's the best of them all!"

"I am well aware of the outstanding quality of the medical unit on this starship. I myself have received superb care in this facility."

"Glad you realize that." McCoy was nearly overwhelmed by the lefthanded compliment. Spock was not known to be lavish with his praises, so these accolades were high praise coming from him indeed.

Spock gave him a stern look. “Nurse Chapel is doing nothing that is not required of her. As head of the nursing staff, she is responsible not only for the nurses beneath her in rank, but the doctors serving alongside them. And those doctors, believe it or not, Doctor, include you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t know,” McCoy growled. “Besides, I’ve been eating. Those bars are full of protein and minerals and all the fiber it takes to keep the little McCoy system purring right along on schedule.”

“I might remind you that consuming food supplements are suggested only in emergency situations or when personnel are with landing parties and have no access to adequate sources of nutrition. Otherwise, for best health, it is suggested that balanced and nutritious meals be consumed at regular times.”

McCoy glared at his Vulcan nemesis. “I told you to tell me something that I don’t know,” he snarled. "That's several things. And most of it came outa my own mouth! I know you don't always believe it, but I do actually listen to myself when I talk!"

“Then why are you not heeding your own medical advice?”

McCoy snorted in disdain.

“And why have you not been getting a proper amount of sleep?”

"Been a little bit busy here, in case you hadn't noticed," he muttered.

"It has been noted by more than one person that you are not taking proper care of yourself. You need your rest."

"I suppose you have someone keeping tabs on that for you, too!" McCoy snorted. "Hell, Chapel's not the only one around here with not enough to do! How come I've become the Project Of The Month on this damn starship, anyway?!"

"Since you have not been taking sufficient care of yourself," Spock answered in a calm voice that grated along all of McCoy's surviving nerves.

"You're starting to sound like a stuck record," McCoy complained, knowing that Spock had just said almost the same thing not a minute before.

"And you still have not answered my question about your sleep patterns."

"They've been erratic, okay?! And believe it or not, I've got a good reason for that!"

"I know that," Spock said in a surprisingly sympathetic voice. "What I am saying is that you have been so negligent of your rest, that you have lost more of it than you realize. And that really isn't wise for you to do to yourself, Doctor."

Somehow, McCoy could take just about anything from Spock except concern and kind treatment. He felt himself bristle in defense.

“Hell, you might as well ask me when was the last shower I’ve taken! You’re nosing in about my other personal health business, why not ask me about that?!”

It was Spock’s turn to show some disdain, and it was conveyed with twisted facial features. “Because I do not need to be furnished with an answer from you when my own nose can supply me with that information quite adequately, thank you. In fact, too adequately,” he finished with a particularly pained expression.

“Oh, come on! I can’t be that ripe!” McCoy protested as he paced around his office. He stopped suddenly so that the air current stirred by his own passing flowed past him. He choked slightly on his own body odor. “Hell, I ain’t ripe!” he declared with blazing eyes. “I’m dead!”

Humor sparkled in Spock’s dark eyes as he fought to keep the stern look on his face. “Perhaps you are not quite that bad. Not yet. But you soon will be.” He frowned. “Now I insist that you go to your quarters and shower. In the meanwhile, I will have some proper nutrition sent to you. An eight-ounce medium rare steak with grilled onions on the side and a large spinach and carrot salad with chopped apples and dried cranberries should be a good start. It will provide you with a lot of nutrition and roughage.”

"When do you have time to be concerned about my roughage intake?"

"Since you have not seemed to have the time."

McCoy sighed to himself. Damn Vulcan! Had an answer for everything!

But he wouldn't let it be all Spock's idea. Let him think that someone is still capable of a little bit of input for his own diet. “Throw in a baked potato with all the trimmings and half a peach cobbler with praline ice cream on top of it, and you’re talking.”

“I will make the request from the kitchen now,” Spock said enthusiastically, turning toward the door. “It will take some minutes to prepare, but you will require some time in the shower to scrub your body clean. The prospect of hot food will give you something to think about while you are scrubbing.”

“Wait!”

Spock turned back with interest. “You require something more? Herbal tea with honey? A specific dressing for your salad? A-1 sauce for your steak?”

“Yeah. A-1. Wait. You’d actually get all of that grub for me?”

“Certainly. You are more apt to eat heartily if you like the food.”

“If I eat all of that, I won’t be able to move!”

“Better yet,” Spock decided with a satisfied smile. “You will rest longer.”

“I will not! You just reached tilt! Or I did! Too much of a good thing!” he declared as he thundered toward the door.

“Wait. Where are you going?” asked a bewildered Spock.

“Back to work!” McCoy barked from the door. “And don’t try to stop me! You, with your showers and rest and enough hot food to feed an army! Even Jim Kirk might well be daunted by the sight of that much food!”

“Jim approved of the idea,” Spock said as he moved toward McCoy.

“Don’t try to stop me!” McCoy warned, wild-eyed, acting like he was a potential flight risk.

“I would not dream of it,” Spock answered as he reached McCoy’s side and raised his hand in one smooth move toward McCoy's shoulder in a sociable way.

McCoy did not realize it, but Spock's movement was not a companionable or supportive gesture. Instead, Spock took advantage of McCoy's trust to apply the Vulcan Nerve Pinch to McCoy’s neck.

McCoy did not even have time to react. Instead, he crumpled as if he was caving from the inside out. It was like watching a balloon deflate. McCoy's eyes rolled back in his head as the lids sank with a resounding snap. McCoy was out instantly. Spock caught him and hoisted the limp body up into his arms. Arms and legs flopped every which way, while Spock tried to stabilize McCoy's head to prevent his neck from being injured.

“I would not dream of it,” Spock said to the slumping form once he had finally gotten McCoy contained to his satisfaction. “But I most certainly would entertain the idea in an awake state,” Spock finished, thus skirting the issue of his using an idiom and avoiding the telling of a lie.

“And before you ask what that nerve pinch was for, Doctor, it was to get you off your feet because you do not seem to have the sense to do it for yourself,” he said sternly as he looked into the slack face focused intently on its own neck and the chin trying to touch the chest beneath it.

When Spock stepped out of McCoy’s office a moment later with McCoy flopping loosely in his arms, Nurse Chapel jumped to her feet.

“Oh, my goodness, Mr. Spock! What happened to Dr. McCoy?! Has he suffered some sort of attack?!”

“In a matter of speaking, Nurse. He has given into his fatigue,” Spock answered and realized how closely he was to telling a whooper. He would have to meditate twice as long this evening to atone for this day's work. “Please notify the kitchen and have some chicken broth and mint tea sent to Dr. McCoy, to be followed in four hours by a four-ounce steak and a potato with root vegetable casserole. And whatever fresh fruit and milk products are handy. He needs proper nutrition. Oh, and A-1 steak sauce. Or else he will complain.”

“Yes, sir,” Chapel said. “Where is he going now? Into a private room in Sickbay?”

“No, I am taking him to his quarters and giving him a shower.”

Chapel gasped.

“Would you rather do it, Nurse? I do believe that the cleansing needs to be done, is that not true?”

“No one will deny that he needs to bathe. It’s just that, ah, I don’t know if he will approve of being bathed. By you. Or by anyone else,” she quickly added. “I doubt if anyone has done that for him since he was five years old.”

“Probably not,” Spock agreed. “I will simply stand outside the cubicle and make certain he gets clean. Or does not drown. Whichever is necessary at the moment.”

Chapel looked relieved.

A moment later, Spock left Sickbay with McCoy lying like a dead man across his two arms.

“Look at that, Scotty,” Kirk said with a lazy smile further down the corridor. “Spock is finally claiming McCoy for his own. And McCoy isn’t fighting him any about it. Kinda refreshing not to have McCoy screaming his head off, isn’t it?”

“Aye,” Scotty agreed with wide eyes.

“Refreshing, but not natural.” Kirk’s eyes narrowed. “In fact, that looks more like an abduction than an elopement. Perhaps we should check it out. Mr. Spock!” Kirk yelled as he trotted after Spock. “Hold up!”

Spock slowed, but did not stop. “I am in a hurry, Captain,” he explained as Kirk and Scotty overtook him and his burden.

“I can see that. Mind telling me what is going on?”

“Dr. McCoy needed to rest. I am seeing that he will get it and the proper food which he is requiring. He needs to relax more.”

“He looks awfully relaxed at the moment. In fact, he looks unconscious. Mind telling me how he got in that state?”

“I found it to be necessary to use the Vulcan Nerve Pinch on him so that he would come to the proper amount of agreement with me.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“Yes, he objected to my suggestion that he needed to see to the requirements of bathing, rest, and food for the sake of his own health.”

“Hmm. Well, yes, I can well imagine how Dr. McCoy reacted to those suggestions, especially since they were not his idea. So, let me see if I've got all of this straight. You’re gonna take him into his quarters, strip his uniform off him, and stand him under the shower until he regains consciousness or smells better, whichever comes first? And just how do you propose doing that? Are you gonna strip, too, and get in the shower with him? That might be a lot of fun, now that I think about it," Kirk said with a lazy, suggestive grin. "Especially when he starts waking up and starts grabbing onto anything he can get ahold of, too.”

Spock was so startled by Kirk’s suggestion that he nearly dropped McCoy. “Why, I… I would never do that!”

“Better have it for a back-up plan then. I doubt if McCoy will be any too willing to take a shower just because the nice man carrying him asks him to real nicely.”

They had reached McCoy’s quarters by that time, and Spock deposited McCoy on his sofa just as McCoy began to awaken from the nerve pinch.

“What the hell?” McCoy moaned as he rubbed his neck and grimaced. “I feel like I got caught in a revolving door or a goat’s been chewing on me.”

“Something like that,” Kirk said with a gentle grin. “Spock used some of his friendly persuasion on you.”

“Just wait until the next time you’re incapacitated in Sickbay!” McCoy snarled at his uncomfortable looking savior. “You just might acquire some bruises you don’t remember receiving.”

“Now, Bones, Spock was just trying to help you. But now he says that you have to undergo the next phase of your rejuvenation,” he added quickly to change the subject.

“What’s that?” McCoy asked suspiciously.

“A shower.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll get around to it. You guys can leave now.”

“Not until you have taken your shower, Doctor.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you are damnation stubborn?!” McCoy demanded.

“I believe the expression is that it takes one to know one.”

“Jim!” McCoy thundered.

“What, Bones?” Kirk asked amiably.

“He picks now to understand idioms?!”

“I believe so,” Kirk said with a chuckle.

“So, how will it be, Doctor?” Spock wanted to know. “Will you take your shower by yourself? Or do you insist that it will be a committee effort?”

McCoy looked around at Spock, Kirk, and Scotty. “And I suppose that you three assholes are the committee you’re talking about?”

“That pretty well sums it up,” Kirk answered, still amiably. “And we don’t care how wet we get, just so you get scrubbed off to suit us and our noses.”

“Well, I never saw such a trio of certifiable assholes in this part of the galaxy,” McCoy muttered as he pulled off his tunic and gave it a toss as he headed for his bathroom. He paused at the door and looked back at them with a threat on his face, because they had started to follow him. “Don’t even think of it! No committee is gonna take part in this shower! Got it?!” he demanded as he glared at each one in turn: intrigued Scotty, smirking Kirk, and determined Spock.

“Just, just go sit down and wait until I’ve finished. The Vulcan’s ordered a ton of food, and I’ll need some help eating it. I hope he ordered something substantial to drink, too, because I have a feeling that I’m gonna need it before this crazy day is over.”

“We’re having a party?” the delighted Scotty wanted to know as McCoy disappeared into the bathroom. The door closed on him, and a moment later they heard the shower come on.

“Sounds like it,” Kirk agreed as he watched Spock delicately pick up McCoy's dirty tunic with two fingers and drape it over the end of the sofa. “At least we must be going to have something to eat and possibly something to drink.”

“We will only if I amend my request,” Spock said as he approached the comm in McCoy’s room.

“Eh?” Scotty questioned.

“I gave Mr. McCoy a long list of foods to tempt his appetite, but the order I had Nurse Chapel request was quite a bit smaller.”

“Just order some pizzas,” Kirk said with a shrug. “Those always go good with alcohol.”

“I told Dr. McCoy that the food would be nutritious.”

“Make a couple of them vegetarian,” Kirk suggested with a shrug. “That way, you can eat, too, and McCoy will get all the veggies he can hold.”

"Dr. McCoy has his heart set on A-1 steak sauce. It was going to set off his medium-rare steak so well," Spock remembered.

"Then let him shake it on a hamburger pizza," Kirk said with a shrug. "Hamburger is simply ground steak. He won't notice the difference. And if he starts to complain, we'll just get him a little drunker."

So that's what they did. But McCoy was so punchy by the time he finished his relaxing shower that he didn't notice that he was eating pizza instead of medium-rare steak. All he cared about was that he had won a reprieve for a little while away from his grinding and oppressive duties in Sickbay.

And that's all that his friends cared about, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing of Star Trek, its characters, and/or its story lines.


End file.
